The Olympic Games also revealed two examples of perversions caused by inherent clashes between the Law of Return and the civil rights bestowed on, or denied to, those who become Israeli citizens on its basis.
The two surprising medals were the bronze medal won by 19-year-old Avishag Semberg in the field of tae kwon do, which most Israelis had never heard of before July 24, and the gold medal won by 24-year-old Artem Dolgopyat for his floor exercise in the field of gymnastics.
Dolgopyat’s case was also one of the two cases related to the Law of Return.
Dolgopyat made aliyah to Israel from Ukraine with his parents in 2009. His father’s mother was Jewish, which defines his father as Jewish, but his mother is not, so he himself is not considered Jewish.
All this did not prevent him from turning overnight into a national hero, but it does prevent him from getting married to his non-Jewish girlfriend of three years, because there is no civil marriage in Israel. Presumably, they could get married in some church, if he were to define himself as a Christian – which he does not.
The second rather embarrassing case was that of Israel’s baseball team, made up of four authentic Israelis – the rest all being American Jews, who received instant citizenship because of their alleged Judaism, even though they apparently have no intention of settling in the country.
It is probably fortunate that the “Israeli” team did not win a medal (it came fifth among the six participating teams), for the simple reason that its participation in the Olympics did not result from excellence but from a manipulation of the Olympic rules for introducing national competitors, and the Law of Return.
Admittedly, there are numerous athletes from all over the world who participate in Olympic teams of countries to which they have no authentic national ties, but in their favor one can add that the vast majority of them are refugees, which certainly was not the case with the baseball team.
This gives rise to the question whether Israel would consider giving one of the 37,000 African asylum-seekers in Israel citizenship, if he or she were an athlete with chances of winning an Olympic medal.
Though Dolgopyat’s career began as a Ukrainian, he has been an Israeli for 12 years, went to school in Tel Aviv (from which he dropped out before completing high school, partially due to language difficulties), and served in the IDF.
His mother admitted in an interview that the family’s decision to make aliyah had been based on their belief that their son could receive more support for his sports career in Israel than in Ukraine. They probably were not aware of the fact that he would not be able to get married in Israel. Well, he was only 12 at the time....
I WONDER whether Dolgopyat’s case will, at long last, hasten the introduction of civil marriage in Israel. Israel is the only country that defines itself as a democracy yet does not enable civil marriages but only religious marriages, and in the case of Jews only Orthodox marriages, which means that a large percentage of Jews in the world cannot get married in Israel. Neither can mixed couples, psulei hitun (persons who according to the Halacha are disqualified from getting married) and those who reject obligatory religious services of any sort.
According to article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized.” When Israel ratified the covenant on August 18, 1991 (i.e., almost 30 years ago, and 25 years after it signed the covenant), it added several reservations, one of them related to article 23, in which it declared that in Israel matters concerning the personal status of its citizens are subject to the religious law of the parties concerned.
The 1990s were also the years when over a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union made aliyah, several hundreds of thousands of whom were not considered Jewish according to the Halacha, and – together with their offspring – were excluded from marriage in Israel according to the prevalent religious law.
From 1990 to the present, for over 20 years, the interior minister was a member of Shas, and there was no chance of changing the law to enable civil marriage in Israel; for the remaining 10 years the issue did emerge from time to time, but there was hardly anyone who was willing to risk falling out with the haredi parties, or even the various incarnations of the National Religious Party.
What are the chances that it will happen today? I suspect that the current government, from which the haredi parties are absent, has sufficient issues of conflict to contend with, so that it is unlikely to initiate legislation on this issue, particularly with Ayelet Shaked (Yamina) as interior minister. However, the issue will not be removed from the agenda – especially because of Dolgopyat’s case, and this festering sore will keep reminding us that there is an unresolved issue to be dealt with.
THE OTHER day I asked a colleague of mine who belongs to the national religious elites (I do not know whether he voted for Bennett or Smotrich – I suspect the latter) what he thought of this whole issue.
To my great surprise he answered that since Israelis have the option to marry in a civil wedding abroad, he sees no reason why there should not be some civil solution in Israel.
However, he then added that, as a religious person (I would add Orthodox religious person), he must admit that he will not be happy with this solution, because it will create problems for the Orthodox population, who will find it much more difficult to verify whether someone is Jewish according to the Halacha.
He added: “Perhaps your daughter would not be able to get married to a religious Jew.”
I chuckled because one of my daughters was unable to get married in a recognized religious ceremony back in 2002, since she chose to marry a man who had been converted to Judaism by a Reform rabbi in South Africa, so that the rabbinate refused to marry them, and the Reform ceremony we held was not recognized in Israel.
Rabbi Uri Regev, who performed the beautiful ceremony (even my Orthodox friends admitted this), took me aside and said to me sadly: “You must realize that the ceremony I perform is not recognized in Israel.”
“Of course,” I answered, “I live among my people. The young couple is planning a civil wedding abroad as well. It sucks, but c’est la vie.”
“So,” I told my religious colleague, “if you want to start preparing endless lists of psulei hitun, be my guest. It is a low price to pay for giving everyone the basic democratic right of getting married in this crazy country, at long last.”
The writer was a researcher in the Knesset Research and Information Center until her retirement, and recently published a book in Hebrew, The Job of the Knesset Member – An Undefined Job, soon to appear in English.